


Why?

by DPPatricks



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: M/M, absolute canon until the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:34:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26652235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DPPatricks/pseuds/DPPatricks
Summary: This may not be for everyone but it *is* mostly canon: a review of the early part of 'Sweet Revenge,' followed by a post-SR sequence.
Relationships: Ken Hutchinson/David Starsky
Comments: 14
Kudos: 23





	Why?

**Author's Note:**

> Daisy_Morgan posted a great story today, 'Seconds,' on this site (here's the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26638684) and it reminded me of a similar but very different story I wrote five years ago. Here it is.  
> “Sweet Revenge,” both the script and the aired episode, left me with a lot of questions. Why did we not see Hutch go to Starsky after he got shot? Why was Hutch’s white jacket unbloodied? Why did he never speak to, or touch his partner until the tag? I tried to address some of those questions here.  
> This was originally posted on the S&H 911 livejournal site in October, 2015, and has been slightly edited for this cross-posting.

“Starsky! Don’t leave me!”

“Other way around, Hutch,” his partner’s soft voice replied. “You left me. Remember?”

Hutch was stunned by the truth of that simple statement.

“I would have stayed,” the soothing voice continued. “I wanted to…. All you had to do was ask.”

Hutch began to cry.

“But you stood there like a carbon-freeze Han Solo.” Starsky’s tone was unemotional, as if he was simply stating facts. “You let others keep me alive until the paramedics got there. Then I guess you stayed to give your report while they transported me. Dobey probably brought you to the hospital.”

Hutch put his face in his hands.

“Why, Hutch?” Starsky asked, quietly. “After all we’d been through, why couldn’t you at least have gone with me?”

“I was afraid.”

Hutch felt rather than saw his partner shake his head. “Not good enough, pal. We’d been afraid before. Lots of times. But it never paralyzed us.”

Hutch looked up, tears blurring his vision.

“When you got to Memorial,” Starsky continued, “you sat in the waiting room, or outside in the hall for hours.” Starsky’s voice was still calm, but sounded taut. “I heard you tell Dobey and Huggy that I was gonna die.”

Hutch scrubbed his hands over his face and nodded. “I did.”

“Why? You didn’t ask _me_ if I was gonna die. When you finally came into the room, you didn’t say a word. You wouldn’t even touch me.” Starsky was silent for a long time. “That hurt, partner. More than the bullets.”

“I couldn’t touch you, Starsk,” Hutch managed to whisper through his choked tears. “I didn’t think I had the right.”

“Bullshit.”

Hutch was forced to nod agreement. “The real reason is because I was still too scared.”

“Scared of what, Hutch?” Starsky asked, softly. “Talk to me.”

“I’m a coward.”

“At the risk of repeating myself…” Starsky had a definite lop-sided grin in his voice, “bullshit. If there’s one thing in this world you are _not_ , Hutchinson, it’s a coward.”

“Oh, yes I am.” Hutch stared down at his shaking hands. “Have been for over a year. I’ve been so afraid of what would happen if I told you how I felt, I’ve been pushing you away, driving things between us.”

“By ‘things,’ you mean, Kira?”

“Among others,” Hutch admitted. “Yeah.”

“Well then, I’ll ask the question one more time. Why?”

“I was falling in love with you,” Hutch whispered.

“Ah,” his partner breathed. “And you couldn’t tell me.”

“No! I didn’t want to take the chance of losing everything we had together. Our friendship, our partnership.”

“And telling me you loved me would have ruined those things?”

“I was afraid it would.”

“That word again,” Starsky muttered. “So instead of taking the chance, you pushed me away and drove things and people between us.”

Hutch nodded in defeat.

“Great way to nurture a partnership, partner,” Starsky commented, with only a touch of sarcasm.

“I was afraid, Starsk.”

“I heard you the first few times.” Starsky’s voice held a harder tone. “So rather than face those fears, you gave up on me.”

Hutch was unable to defend himself because it was true.

“We’d never done that before, Hutch. We never quit trying to find each other, or the answer. The antidote, or the right canyon. We believed in each other. We were there for each other.”

“I know.” Hutch’s heart hurt so badly right then, he thought he might join his partner.

“You left the hospital. You were my touch stone, my anchor, Hutch. When you went away, I lost my lifeline. You’d made up your mind that I was gonna die… So I died.”

Hutch began to cry again, soul-deep wracking sobs.

“Hutch…. Hey, Hutch.”

The sleepy voice managed to force its way through Hutch’s turmoil.

“Don’t do this to yourself, babe.”

Hutch drew in a deep, shuddering breath and rolled onto his back. His partner put an arm across his chest and nestled his curly head onto his shoulder.

“Same dream?” Starsky asked softly.

Hutch realized it _had_ been the dream he'd had many times since the shooting.

“You’ve gotta let it go.” Starsky gently stroked Hutch’s right arm that was held rigidly at his side. “I’ve told you. The shrinks have told you. You have nothing to feel guilty about.” A grin crept into his soft voice. “And you’re not Catholic or Jewish so you shouldn’t be this good at it.” He twined his fingers around Hutch’s left hand. “Let it go.”

“But everything in my dream happened, Starsk. I abandoned you. And you died.”

“Sure I did. I thought you’d given up on me.” Starsky raised up on his right elbow and stared into Hutch’s tortured eyes. “But you came storming into the hospital and I knew you hadn’t. Not really. I also knew I couldn’t leave you. So I came back, too.”

“I wouldn’t talk to you. I didn’t even touch you.” Hutch closed his eyes, feeling unworthy of the adoration he saw in those intense blues.

“I must have heard your love, though, felt it.” Starsky tightened his arms. “We never needed words. Didn’t need ‘em then. Your heart spoke to mine, and I guess that’s all they were waiting for.”

Hutch felt the soft lips trace his jaw line, then move slowly down his throat.

“Since we’re awake,” Starsky muttered, clearly getting into foreplay mode, “think I could convince you this isn’t a dream? That I’m alive?”

Hutch raised his hands and captured Starsky’s head, lifting it to look deeply into the midnight blue eyes. “I think you could manage that.”

“And that you’ve got nothing to feel guilty about?”

“You may have to work on that one,” Hutch replied, a touch of remorse still extant.

“Oh, goody, a challenge!” With definite relish, Starsky began to kiss Hutch’s face and neck in earnest.

Hutch stopped the advance and lifted Starsky’s face to his again. “I didn’t say it that day… but I’ll say it every day for the rest of our lives. I love you, David Starsky.”

“And I love you, Kenneth Hutchinson.”

Starsky’s tone and gaze left no more doubt in Hutch’s mind. His friend didn’t blame him for his lapse, so he needed to stop blaming himself. He’d work on that, just as soon as he finished kissing Starsky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, again, for the nudge, Daisy_Morgan!


End file.
